The Dead End Of Afghanistan

Kori Schake second-guesses the administration:

The central problem impeding success in Afghanistan is the Afghans themselves. One does not see an opening up of the political system (there are no political parties, by presidential decree) or a burgeoning of civil society, which are the bedrock of democratic governance. Despite having five years to prepare for the May presidential election, the government of Afghanistan has postponed it. I actually had an Afghan tell me "what you call corruption, we call the economy."

In the seven years it has had enormous international assistance, Afghanistan has not succeeded, and they are still expecting the international community to fix their problems.

A surge of troops and a counterinsurgency strategy carefully calibrated to Afghanistan's circumstances will undoubtedly help us to succeed in Afghanistan. But as in Iraq and other nation-building enterprises, we cannot succeed unless the Afghans succeed, militarily and politically. And thus far, the odds of this happening appear pretty low -- low enough that we should rethink whether robbing Iraq to pay Afghanistan is really the best policy.

You know what? Burke was right. The whole idea that the West can deeply change Afghanistan or Iraq in a few years is simply utopian. We should know that by now. Cutting our losses in Iraq and having minimal security aims in Afghanistan is the best we can now do. Maybe the US has helped dislodge some ancient cycles by dramatic intervention. But the rest is up to those cultures themselves. If they do not pose a threat to the West, there is no reason not to leave them alone.